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Reprinted  from  The  University  of  Colorado  Studies,  Vol.  II,  No.  2,  July,  1904 


THE  BOUNDARIES  OF  COLORADO 


By 
FREDERIC  L.  PAXSON,  Ph.D. 


Boulder,  Colorado 
July,  1904 


THE   BOUNDARIES  OF  COLORADO 

By  Frederic  L.  Paxson 

The  State  of  Colorado  is  bounded  on  the  north  and  south,  respect- 
ively, by  the  thirty- seventh  and  forty-first  parallels  of  north  latitude, 
and  on  the  east  and  west  by  the  twenty-fifth  and  thirty- second  meridians 
of  longitude  west  from  Washington.  The  territory  inclosed  by  this 
rectangle  has  had  a  history  of  remarkable  variety  and  change.  It  has 
at  various  times,  in  whole  or  in  part,  been  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  independent  countries,  France,  Spain,  Mexico,  Texas,  and  the 
United  States;  and  while  under  the  United  States  it  has  formed  parts  of 
the  territorial  governments  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico,  Kansas  and 
Nebraska,  and  of  the  State  of  Texas.  It  is  the  purpose  of  this  article  to 
trace  the  external  facts  in  connection  with  this  history  of  change.^ 

With  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  under  the  convention  of  April  30, 
1803,  the  territory  of  Colorado  came  for  the  first  time  within  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  United  States.  The  boundaries  of  this  vast  province  beyond 
the  Mississippi  had  never  been  surveyed,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  at 
the  time  of  the  transfer  they  were  really  known.  Certain  it  is  that  the 
terms  of  the  treaty  threw  no  light  upon  them,  for  the  First  Consul  was 
not  averse  to  planting  seeds  of  discord  between  the  United  States  and 
Spain.  The  territory  had  passed  from  France  to  Spain  in  1763,  from 
Spain  to  France  in  1800,  and  now,  **'with  the  same  extent  that  it  now 
has,"^  was  dehvered  by  the  French  Republic  to  the  United  States. 

The  province  of  Louisiana  extended,  by  all  laws  of  discovery,  explo- 
ration, and  conquest,  to  the  limits  of  the  drainage  basin  of  the  Mississippi.^ 

'  The  various  boundaries  within  the  United  States  have  been  described  briefly  in  Builelin  of  the  United 
States  Geological  Survey  No.  71,  which  is  a  pamphlet  by  Henry  Gannett  on  the  "Boundaries  of  the  United 
States."  This  is  a  second  edition,  printed  in  1900,  of  Bulletin  No.  13  of  1885.  The  second  edition  is  fully 
illustrated  with  maps;  but  these  are  inacou-ate  in  a  number  of  instances  and  must  be  used  with  care.  As  a 
whole,  the  work  is  extremely  useful.     All  references  in  this  article  are  to  the  second  edition. 

'  Treaties  and  Conventions  Concluded  between  the  United  States  of  America  and  Other  Powers,  p.  331. 

3  Hermann,  The  Louisiana  Purchase  (Washington,  1898),  contains  an  excellent  map  showing  the  relations 
of  Colorado  to  I^uisiana  and  Texas. 

87 


88  UNIVERSITY  OF  COLORADO  STUDIES 

Its  boundary  on  the  west,  had  it  ever  been  described,  must  have  followed 
the  summit  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  from  the  vicinity  of  the  forty-ninth 
parallel  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Arkansas  River.  It  is  not  impossible 
that  the  hne  should  have  extended  even  farther  south,  to  the  source  of 
the  Rio  Grande.'  But,  whichever  river  be  accepted  as  the  southern 
limit  of  Louisiana,  it  is  certain  that  by  the  purchase  of  this  province  the 
eastern  half  of  Colorado  became  the  property  of  the  United  States. 

By  an  act  of  March  26,  1804,  Congress  provided  its  first  government 
for  the  new  lands.  ^  So  much  of  Louisiana  as  lay  south  of  the  thirty- 
third  parallel  became  the  territory  of  Orleans,  while  the  remaining  por- 
tion of  the  purchase  was  appended  to  the  territory  of  Indiana  with  the 
name  of  district  of  Louisiana.^  It  was  not  until  March  3,  1805,  that 
Congress  gave  an  independent  territorial  organization  to  this  district, 
under  the  same  name."* 

When  the  territory  of  Orleans  was  admitted  to  the  union  in  181 2,  it 
received  for  its  name  Louisiana, ^  and  the  territory  to  the  north,  thus 
deprived  of  its  name,  was  called  Missouri  by  the  act  of  June  4,  1812.^ 
For  a  period  of  seven  years  this  new  territory  of  Missouri  stretched  from 
the  Mississippi  indefinitely  to  the  west.  Spain  was  in  no  hurry  to  define 
the  boundaries  between  her  American  possessions  and  those  of  the 
United  States,  and  it  was  not  until  181 5  that  the  United  States  was  ready 
to  receive  a  minister  from  His  Cathohc  Majesty.  The  first  minister 
sent  by  Ferdinand  VII  after  his  restoration  to  the  throne  of  Spain  in 
181 5  was  Don  Luis  De  Onis,  who  entered  upon  the  threefold  task  of 
protesting  against  American  intervention  in  the  Floridas,  of  withstand- 
ing the  American  sympathies  for  Spain's  revolted  colonies,  and  of  drawing 
a  hne  between  the  respective  American  territories  of  Spain  and  the 
United  States.' 

The  three  tasks  of  De  Onis  were  almost  inextricably  entangled,  and 

»  Hermann,  48,  takes  this  view;  and  Henry  Adams,  History  of  the  United  States,  II,  5,  shows  that  France 
believed  this  to  be  the  case. 

'  Poore,  Charters  and  Constitutions,  I,  691;  Henry  Adams,  II,  125. 

3  McMaster,  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States,  III,  23. 

♦  Poore,  1, 607. 

s  Act  of  April  8,  1812,  Henry  Adams,  VI,  235;  McMaster,  IH,  375. 

6  Poore,  n,  1097;  McMaster,  V,  570. 

»  Pazson,  Independence  of  the  South  American  Republics,  p.  114. 


THE   BOUNDARIES  OF  COLORADO  89 

it  was  only  after  long  and  patient  negotiations  with  John  Quincy  Adams, 
Secretary  of  State,  that  a  conclusion  was  reached.'  While  even  then 
the  fears  of  Spain  respecting  South  America  were  not  satisfied.  By  the 
treaty  of  February  22,  181 9,  Spain,  for  a  consideration,  ceded  the 
Floridas  to  the  United  States,  and  a  compromise  boundary  between 
Louisiana  and  Mexico  was  agreed  upon.  The  Louisiana  enabhng  act 
of  February  20,  181 1,"*  had  fixed  for  the  western  boundary  of  the  State^ 
the  Sabine  River  up  to  the  thirty-second  parallel,  and  thence  due  north  to 
the  thirty-third  parallel.  The  new  treaty  started  the  western  boundary 
of  the  United  States  at  the  same  point.^  Beginning  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Sabine  River,  it  followed  the  western  bank  of  the  same  to  the  thirty-second 
parallel  of  north  latitude;  from  this  point  it  ran  due  north  to  Red  River, 
and  followed  the  course  of  the  river  westward  to  the  one  hundredth 
meridian  west  of  London;  thence  it  went  due  north  again  to  the  southern 
bank  of  the  Arkansas  River,  followed  this  bank  to  the  source  of  the 
river  "in  latitude  42  north,"  and  thence  ran  westward  along  the  forty- 
second  parallel  to  the  Pacific.  For  the  first  time  a  boundary  of  the 
United  States  had  been  drawn  through  Colorado. 

The  territory  of  Missouri,  erected  in  181 2,  lasted  until  the  act  of 
March  6,  1820,  to  enable  the  people  of  Missouri  to  form  a  state  govern- 
ment, reduced  its  boundaries  to  those  of  the  present  State  of  Missouri 
without  the  '^  triangle.  ""^  The  western  lands  were  thus  deprived  of  terri- 
torial organization,  coming  so  far  as  they  had  government  at  all  undei 
the  miUtary  rule  of  the  United  States  army  on  the  frontier.  Until  the 
acts  of  1850  and  1854,  dividing  the  western  lands  among  Utah,  New 
Mexico,  Kansas,  and  Nebraska,  Colorado  had  no  territorial  government. 

But  before  1850  the  territory  of  Colorado  was  twice  extended  in  its 
dimensions.  By  the  Spanish  treaty  its  boundaries  on  west  and  south 
were  the  Arkansas  River  and  the  meridian  of  its  source.     By  the  admis- 

'  Morse,  John  Quincy  Adams,  pp.  in-117;  McMaster,  IV,  474-83. 
'  Poore,  I,  600;  Gannett,  no. 

3  Treaties  and  Conveniions,  p.  1017.  After  the  independence  of  Mexico  had  been  gained,  a  treaty  was 
entered  into  by  the  United  States  and  Mexico,  January  12,  1828,  confirming  this  boundary. — Ibid.,  661.  The 
Republic  of  Texas,  by  a  convention  of  April  25,  1838,  accepted  this  line  and  arranged  for  a  joint  survey  com- 
mission with  the  United  States. — Ibid.,  1070. 

♦  Poore,  II,  1102.  The  State  of  Missouri  was  admitted  by  proclamation,  August  10,  1821. — Richardson 
II.  96. 


90  UNIVERSITY  OF  COLORADO  STUDIES 

sion  of  Texas  to  the  union  on  December  29,  1845,'  the  territory  between 
this  line  and  that  new  Hne  of  the  Rio  Grande  and  the.  meridian  of  its 
source,  which  Texas  claimed  as  her  western  boundary,  was  added  to 
Colorado,  while  by  the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo,^  February  2, 1848, 
the  remaining  portion  of  the  territory  embraced  in  Colorado  was  acquired 
by  the  United  States. 

The  division  of  the  territory  conquered  during  the  Mexican  war  and 
ceded  to  the  United  States  at  its  close  led  to  bitter  controversy  in  Congress, 
between  the  representatives  of  the  slave-holding  and  the  anti-slavery 
interests.  And  the  dispute  was  ended  only  by  the  comprehensive  meas- 
ure of  Henry  Clay,  that  has  come  to  be  known  as  the  Compromise  of 
1850.  By  this  settlement,  the  territory  gained  from  Mexico,  including 
certain  territory  lying  east  of  the  Rio  Grande  and  claimed  by  Texas,  was 
cut  into  the  two  new  territories  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico.  And  between 
these  territories  so  much  of  Colorado  as  lay  south  of  the  treaty  line  of 
181 9  was  divided.^ 

The  act  creating  the  territory  of  Utah  is  dated  September  9,  1850. 
The  boundaries  of  this  territory,  which  alone  of  the  new  lands  had  any 
considerable  amount  of  white  population,  were  the  thirty-seventh  and 
forty-second  parallels,  the  eastern  boundary  of  California,  and  the 
summit  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.^  All  of  Colorado  west  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  lay  within  the  territory  of  Utah. 

The  New  Mexico  act  was  a  part  of  the  general  compromise  scheme 
and  was  passed  on  December  13,  1850.^     The  greater  portion  of  the 

I  H.  H.  Bancroft,  Works,  XVI,  383;  Gannett,  24,  iii.  This  Texan  boundary  was  based  on  the  secret 
treaties  of  Santa  Anna  and  various  resolutions  of  the  Texan  congress.  Although  the  title  of  Texas  to  this 
land  was  not  vidid  as  against  Mexico,  it  has  alw^ays  been  considered  good  as  against  the  United  States. — 
Bancroft,  X.VI,  270,  399;  XVII,  454. 

_S^reaiies  and  Conventions,  p.  681. 

3  This  statement  is  not  Uterally  accxirate.  That  portion  of  Colorado  east  of  the  one  hundred  and  third 
meridian  and  north  of  the  thirty-eighth  parallel  was  left  without  a  government.  In  1854  a  jxjrtion  of  this 
became  a  part  of  Kansas  territory. 

♦  Poore,  II,  1236-,  Bancroft,  XVII,  458;  XX\T,  453. 454".  Gannett,  131. 

s  Gannett,  131.  Utah  extended  to  the  summit  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  on  the  east,  and  the  western 
boundary  of  the  New  Mexico  "panhandle"  was  the  simimit  of  the  Sierra  Madre  mountains.  If  we  are  to 
understand  by  "Rocky  Mountains,"  as  we  must  in  this  case,  the  Continental  Divide,  and  by  "Sierra  Madre* 
the  Front  Range,  it  is  evident  that  between  Utah  and  New  Mexico  lay  a  strip  of  territory  bounded  on  its  other 
sides  by  the  thirty-seventh  and  thirty-eighth  parallels.  This  piece  of  land  was  too  far  west  to  be  in  the  old 
Missouri  territory,  and  hence  never  came  imder  territorial  government  tmtil  the  passage  of  the  Colorado  Act  in 
1861.  But  in  1850  the  territory  had  not  been  accurately  surveyed,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  Congress  realized 
that  it  was  lea\-ing  this  fragment  of  uninhabited  waste  without  a  government.  The  name  Sierra  Madre  is  no 
longer  apphed  to  the  Front  Range.  For  a  good  case  of  the  old  usage  see  William  Gilpin,  Mission  of  the  North 
American  People  (second  edition,  Philadelphia,  1874),  p.  16. 


THE  BOUNDARIES  OF  COLORADO  9 1 

northern  boundary  of  the  territory  was  the  southern  boundary  of  Utah, 
the  thirty-seventh  parallel.  But  in  the  north-east  corner  of  New  Mexico 
was  a  "pan-handle "  extending  into  the  present  limits  of  Colorado.  The 
one  hundred  and  third  meridian,  which  was  the  eastern  boundary  of 
New  Mexico,  extended  north  to  the  thirty-eighth  parallel;  the  hne  ran 
west  along  this  parallel  to  the  summit  of  the  Sierra  Madre  mountains, 
and  south  along  the  mountains  to  the  thirty-seventh  parallel.  Thus  so 
much  of  Colorado  as  lay  between  the  thirty-seventh  and  thirty-eighth 
parallels,  the  one  hundred  and  third  meridian,  and  the  Sierra  Madre 
was  part  of  New  Mexico. 

That  portion  of  Colorado,  bounded  on  the  west  by  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  on  the  south  by  New  Mexico  had  been  without  any  government 
since  the  passage  of  the  Missouri  enabling  act,  when  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
measures  were  taken  up  in  1854.  Here,  as  in  the  measures  of  1850,  the 
struggle  between  the  slave  and  free  States  dictated  the  terms  of  the 
territorial  division.  By  the  final  agreement,  in  the  act  of  May  30,  1854, 
the  territory  between  Missouri  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  was  divided 
between  two  territorial  governments.  A  southern  strip,'  lying  between 
the  thirty-seventh  and  fortieth  parallels,  and  bounded  on  the  west  by  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  the  New  Mexico  *' pan-handle,"  became  the 
territory  of  Kansas.  What  was  left  of  the  undivided  territory  north  of 
the  fortieth  parallel  and  east  of  the  Rockies''  was  estabhshed  under  the 
territorial  government  of  Nebraska.  And  now,  for  the  first  time,  the 
whole  area  of  Colorado  was  covered  by  territorial  governments,  by 
Utah,  New  Mexico,  Kansas,  and  Nebraska. 

The  settlement  of  the  western  States  moved  forward  with  great 
thoroughness  until  Kansas  and  Nebraska  were  reached.  Until  this 
time  the  wave  of  population  had  covered  the  ground  evenly,  and  had 
not  advanced  in  one  direction  much  more  rapidly  than  in  another.  But 
the  discovery  of  gold  in  Cherry  Creek,  on  the  no^h  fork  of  the  Platte, 
transformed  this  even  movement,  and  brought  about  a  rush  of  settlers 

'  Poore,  I,  574-,  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States,  I,  439,  has  failed  to  notice  this  irregularity 
in  the  southwest  corner  of  Kansas;  Gannett,  125.  The  map  in  Gannett,  facing  p.  122,  gives  the  incorrect 
impression  that  Kansas  extended  to  36°  30'  on  the  south,  and  on  the  west  only  to  the  Arkansas  River  and  the 
hundredth  meridian;  while  his  map  facing  p.  126  corrects  the  former  blunder  and  repeats  the  latter. 

»  Poore,  I,  569;  Gannett,  126. 


92  UNIVERSITY  OF  COLORADO  STUDIES 

into  the  gold  diggings  before  actual  government  had  been  established 
there  and  long  before  the  frontier  had  reached  the  Rockies.  From  this 
sudden  emigration  in  1858  came  the  settlement  of  Colorado. 

The  earliest  suggestion  of  a  new  State  to  be  erected  at  .Cherry  Creek, 
where  Denver  now  stands,  came  in  the  autumn  of  1858,  two  weeks  after 
the  first  miners  reached  Auraria  and  when  there  were  hardly  two  hundred 
settlers  in  the  whole  district.  Distance  from  the  seat  of  territorial  gov- 
ernment, absence  of  courts,  and  the  lawless  character  of  much  of  the 
mining  population  made  some  sort  of  local  organization  necessary  in 
the  gold  camp.  And  the  suggestion  of  1858  developed  in  1859  into  the 
spontaneous  territory  of  Jefferson.  At  a  preHminary  convention  held  in 
Denver  on  April  15,  1859,^  it  was  determined  to  erect  an  independent 
government  there,  and  the  boundaries  within  which  the  new  State  was 
to  claim  jurisdiction  were  the  thirty-seventh  and  forty-third  parallels, 
and  the  one  hundred  and  second  and  one  hundred  and  tenth  meridians. 
The  movement  for  statehood  failed,  but  the  constitution  of  the  "terri- 
tory" of  Jefferson  which  was  adopted  by  the  people  on  October  10,  1859, 
claimed  those  boundaries.* 

The  "territory"  of  Jefferson  thus  constituted  lived  a  precarious 
existence  for  almost  two  years.  At  no  time,  however,  was  its  control  of 
the  situation  in  the  Arkansas  and  Platte  Valleys  complete.  It  was 
admittedly  an  illegitimate  organization,  existing  without  federal  authority, 
and  in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska.  Its  only  justifica- 
tion was  the  need  for  a  government  and  the  absence  of  any  effective 
authority;  and  this  excuse  became  better  after  Kansas  had  been  admitted 
as  a  State  with  boundaries  excluding  the  gold  country. 

Most  of  the  southern  boundary  of  Colorado  was  defined  in  the  Utah 
and  New  Mexico  acts  of  1850.  The  eastern  boundary  was  first  drawn 
by  the  act  of  January  29,  1861,  under  which  Kansas  was  admitted.  And 
this  act  accepted  the  boundary  provision  of  the  Wyandotte  constitution. 
Through  three  constitutional  conventions,  at  Topeka,^  Lecompton,^  and 

'  The  first  number  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  News,  Ajail  23,  1859,  contains  the  account  of  the  steps  in  the 
formation  of  a  State  constitution.     Compare  also  J.  C.  Smiley,  History  of  Denver,  p.  309,  and  his  map  on  p.  310. 

'Rocky  Mountain  News,  October  20,  1859-,  Hollister,  Tlie  Mines  of  Colorado,  92;  Bancroft,  XXV,  406; 
Smiley,  314;  Hall,  History  of  Colorado,  I,  211. 

3  Poore,  I,  580.  4  Poore,  I,  599. 


THE  BOUNDARIES  OF  COLORADO  93 

Mineola,'  the  boundaries  claimed  for  the  State  of  Kansas  were  those  of 
the  territory,  extending  westward  to  the  mountains  and  New  Mexico. 
But  the  Wyandotte  constitution^  substituted  for  this  the  twenty-fifth 
meridian  of  longitude,  west  from  Washington,  and  the  Kansas  act 
accepted  this  statement  of  the  case.^  Colorado  was  for  the  second  time 
deprived  of  even  the  form  of  a  territorial  government. 

When  Kansas  was  admitted,  the  flimsy  government  of  the  "terri- 
tory" of  Jefferson  had  nearly  run  its  course.  For  two  sessions  that 
government  had  conducted  a  legislature,  and  its  governor  had  used 
every  effort  to  make  his  administration  effective.  But  the  men  in  the 
mining  camps  had  evaded  the  jurisdiction  of  the  "territory,"  and  the 
support  of  the  Denver  inhabitants  had  never  been  enthusiastic.  When 
the  Kansas  act  cut  off  Colorado,  there  was  already  before  Congress 
and  near  to  completion  a  bill  that  was  to  bring  peace  and  termination 
to  the  "territorial"  government. 

A  bill  to  erect  a  new  territory  west  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  out  of 
lands  taken  from  those  territories  and  New  Mexico  and  Utah,  had 
appeared  in  Congress  in  the  session  of  1859-60.  But  other  and  stronger 
interests  had  prevented  the  passage  of  the  act  at  this  time  and  had  deliv- 
ered the  work  over  to  the  next  session.  In  1860-61  the  act  was  taken  up 
again  and  passed. 

The  Colorado  territorial  act  became  a  law  on  February  28,  1 861.4 
It  accepted  as  the  southern  boundary  of  the  territory  the  thirty-seventh 
parallel,  which  had  already  been  drawn  between  Utah  and  New  Mexico 
as  far  east  as  the  Sierra  Madre  mountains.  For  the  eastern  boundary  it 
made  use  of  the  western  boundary  of  Kansas,  the  twenty-fifth  meridian 
from  Washington,  and  continued  it  north  to  the  forty-first  parallel 
which  became  the  northern  boundary  of  Colorado.  On  the  west  Utah 
was  pushed  back  from  the  Rockies  to  the  thirty-second  meridian  to  make 
way  for  the  western  half  of  the  new  territory.     The  extravagant  claims 

»  Poore,  I,  614.  »  Poore,  I,  630.  3  Gannett,  125. 

«Poore,  I,  212;  Gannett,  130;  Bancroft,  XXV,  413;  Hall,  I,  262;  Blaine,  Twenty  Years  of  Congress^ 
I,  270.  It  should  be  noticed  that  no  jwrtion  of  Kansas  was  given  to  Colorado,  as  the  western  end  of  the 
former  territory  was  cut  off  before  Colorado  was  created.  And  the  Wyandotte  constitution  under  which  Kansas 
was  admitted,  and  which  first  fixed  the  twenty-fifth  meridian  as  its  western  boimdary,  was  framed  in  the  stunmer 
of  1859  before  the  idea  of  a  new  territory  for  Colorado  had  developed  in  Congress.    Cf.  Gannett,  125. 


94  UNIVERSITY  OF  COLORADO   STUDIES 

of  the  "territory"  of  Jefferson  to  the  forty- third  parallel  and  the  one 
hundred  and  tenth  meridian  were  calmly  disregarded.     < 

The  territory  of  Colorado  existed  under  those  boundaries  throughout 
its  history.  When  it  framed  a  constitution  and  became  a  State  in  1876, 
it  still  retained  them. 


1      Gaylord 

Bros.      1 

Makers                J 

Syracuse, 

N.  Y. 

PAT.  JAN.  21 

,1908 

